1. Field of Invention
The present invention is directed to systems and methods for creating, managing and delivering adaptive content. More specifically, without limitation, the present invention relates to systems and methods for creating, managing and delivering educational curricular materials adapted according to defined objectives and performance metrics.
2. Description of Related Art
The Internet is a global network of connected computer networks. Over the last several years, the Internet has grown in significant measure. A large number of computers on the Internet provide information in various forms. Anyone with a computer connected to the Internet can potentially tap into this vast pool of information.
The most wide spread method of providing information over the Internet is via the World Wide Web (the Web). The Web consists of a subset of the computers connected to the Internet; the computers in this subset run Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) servers (Web servers). The information available via the Internet also encompasses information available via other types of information servers such as GOPHER, WAIS, SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol), POP3 (Post Office Protocol) and FTP (file transfer protocol).
Information on the Internet can be accessed through the use of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). A URL uniquely specifies the location of a particular piece of information on the Internet. A URL will typically be composed of several components. The first component typically designates the protocol by which the address piece of information is accessed (e.g., HTTP, GOPHER, etc.). This first component is separated from the remainder of the URL by a colon (‘:’). The remainder of the URL will depend upon the protocol component. Typically, the remainder designates a computer on the Internet by name, or by IP number, as well as a more specific designation of the location of the resource on the designated computer. For instance, a typical URL for an HTTP resource might be:                http://www.server.com/dir1/dir2/resource.htmwhere http is the protocol, www.server.com is the designated computer and /dir1/dir2/resouce.htm designates the location of the resource on the designated computer.        
Web servers host information in the form of Web pages; collectively the server and the information hosted are referred to as a Web site. A significant number of Web pages are encoded using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) although other encodings using the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) or the Standard Generic Markup Language (SGML) are becoming increasingly more common. The published specifications for these languages are incorporated by reference herein. Web pages in these formatting languages may include links to other Web pages on the same Web site or another. As will be known to those skilled in the art, Web pages may be generated dynamically by a server by integrating a variety of elements into a formatted page prior to transmission to a Web client. Web servers, and information servers of other types, await requests for the information from Internet clients.
Client software has evolved that allows users of computers connected to the Internet to access this information. Advanced clients such as Netscape's Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer allow users to access software provided via a variety of information servers in a unified client environment. Typically, such client software is referred to as browser software.
Computer and telecommunications technologies provide an unprecedented ability to custom tailor content to the demands of particular users. The present invention utilizes these technologies to create, manage and deliver content, particularly educational curricular materials, adapted according to defined objectives and performance metrics. Further, usage of the adapted material by a diverse user based allows evaluation of the material to determine potential content bias.
Most current electronic educational environments provide a scripted package of materials to students that do not take into account the individual needs or understanding of the student. Further, such environments do not typically take into account the limitations of the delivery environment used by the student. When a user first subscribes to an environment according to the present invention, she begins at a basic education level and works her way up so she is not intimidated by her first interaction. The questions are prepared with different ascending levels of difficulty for each age and grade of the user to offer a unique and satisfying experience. The environment consists of a dynamic system of evaluations that measure the user's progress based on age, academic level and number of correctly answered questions and advances by way of well structured, interactive, positive experiences. If a user has difficulty responding to some questions or finds the material too easy, the environment will adapt to the user's knowledge level. Users have the opportunity to learn new concepts and to practice and reinforce those concepts from the curriculum. Also, parents/teachers have the option to receive periodic reports to follow a user's progress and participation.